When Steven Colbert and his guests sang that song on his last show in December, Laurel said it was so sweet she felt like crying.  Then she heard it playing in Cardiff Castle when she toured it in Feburary.  The castle acted as a bomb shelter during WWII when “We’ll Meet Again” was a popular, British song.…

We took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) train 28 minutes northeast from Tara Street Station to Howth on Sunday.  It’s a pretty town on the Irish Sea with a very popular (especially on a sunny Sunday) cliff walk where we heard more French, Spanish, and American voices than Irish.  I’m sure it’s even better in…

One of our neighbors started BLARING horrible techno-pop and talking and laughing loudly at 4:30 this morning.  This went on for about 40 minutes, and then we didn’t hear another peep.  I don’t know what that was about.  In the late morning the bells of St. Patrick’s Cathedral pealed for maybe an hour.  Then we…

Friday morning we went on another group tour, this time in a large van to Wicklow, south of Dublin.  I have a hard time staying awake as a passenger on a road trip and slept through about half of yesterday’s travels.  I’m 42 going on 2, I guess.  Our 70-year-old driver, John, spoke into a microphone,…

We toured the Irish Whiskey Museum Friday, and I got to taste three varieties at the end.  It’s smooth!  (Unlike scotch which we learned is smoky tasting.  I’m not a spirits conneissur, so all the info was new to me.)  We learned: 1. The term “wake” for an Irish funeral comes (supposedly) from a time when…

We flew from London City Airport, one of five London airports, to Dublin Sunday night and enjoyed our taxi driver’s lilting brogue and commentary on the ride from the Dublin airport to our apartment.  The tiny apartment requires planning and coordination of movements in order to dry the laundry on the drying rack and move the second…